On Monday, an Air France Airbus A380, operating as Air France Flight 007, collided with a Comair Bombardier CRJ-700, operating as Comair flight 553/Delta Connection flight 6293 in Delta Connection livery, on a taxiway at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. The A380 had 520 people onboard, and the smaller plane had 66.

An Air France Airbus A380 Image: Andy Mitchell.

The Comair jet had just arrived from Boston Logan International Airport, and was stopped on the tarmac, awaiting a gate to offload passengers. The A380 was preparing to depart for Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport, and was taxiing along a taxiway when its wingtip struck the tail of the other plane. The impact spun the CRJ around 90 degrees and resulted in some damage to both planes.

A Delta Connection Bombardier CRJ-700 Image: Mark Wagner.

A passenger on board the A380 said that “It really felt just like a speedbump or like hitting a pothole—a jolt—but it didn’t feel right [it felt] like that shouldn’t be happening.”

LiveATC.net captured the recording of the flight deck and ground control communications before and after the incident. In the recording, one can hear controllers giving taxi instructions to the Air France plane, then later a controller calling for emergency personnel to the intersection of taxiways Alpha and Mike.

The National Transportation Safety Board plans to investigate the incident, and will study the flight recorders, air traffic control recordings, and data from radar on the ground.

New safety procedures are to be implemented after an American Airlines Boeing 777 came close to colliding with two U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III aircraft off the coast of New York, United States, last month. Radar data indicates the aircraft came within 1 miles (2 km) of each other before the flight crew of the Boeing 777 took evasive action as an alarm sounded in the cockpit of the jet.

An American Airlines Boeing 777. Image: Adrian Pingstone.

An aviation official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the traffic collision avoidance system alarm which sounded in the cockpit of the passenger jet, which had 259 people aboard, “may be what saved the day,” since C-17 cargo aircraft are not highly manoeuvrable. Investigators have reportedly found the aircraft would have collided head-on.

A U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III. Image: U.S. Air Force.

The National Transportation Safety Board has launched a “major investigation” into the incident, and confirmed there were no injuries in the incident. The Federal Aviation Administration, the government department responsible for aviation in the U.S., said in a statement air traffic controllers are “reviewing a variety of procedures including the handling of formation flights, aircraft near sector boundaries.”

According to Wakalat Anba’a al-Emarat, the official news agency of the United Arab Emirates, a Boeing 747-400 cargo plane belonging to the United States courier UPS Airlines, crashed after take-off in Dubai on Friday. Two crew members were on board at the time of the crash, both of whom were killed. There were no reports of any other deaths or injuries on the ground.

Crashed UPS Airlines Flight 6

The aircraft was en route to Cologne Bonn Airport in Cologne, Germany when it crashed. According to witnesses, at around 7.45 p.m. local time, it caught fire and attempted to return to the airport, then crashed into the ground near Dubai Silicon Oasis. It had just taken off from Dubai International Airport a few minutes beforehand. The crash site is inside the perimeter fence of Emirati air base, located near a busy highway intersection.

UPS 747-400

A contributing witness on the Professional Pilots Rumour Network, an aviation discussion board, wrote: “Just five minutes ago. I heard and saw an aircraft, possibly an airliner going down in Dubai near Silicon Oasis. It has just over-flown my house and [there was] a big fireball.” Another contributor suggested that the aircraft was attempting to land on Runway 30L, when it declared an emergency and subsequently veered off course. The aircraft then allegedly disappeared from radar, descending through 500ft doing 250 knots. Another contributor reported that “the wreckage trail is fairly long … so it looks like it is possible they still had control & tried to force land it.”

UPS international operations manager Bob Lekites released a statement describing the incident as “very unfortunate” and that UPS “will do everything to find the cause.” An investigation into the cause of the incident has been launched by UAE authorities, and Boeing has announced it intends to “send a team to provide technical support to the investigation upon invitation from the authorities.” The National Transportation Safety Board of the United States also released a press statement, stating that it “will dispatch an aviation investigator to assist the government of United Arab Emirates in its investigation of the crash”. The team will, according to the statement “include NTSB specialists in the areas of human performance, fire, operations, and systems.”